A sad piece of family history.

Ida Dunn, my paternal grandmother of Irish ancestry, was the sole teacher in a one room log cabin in Wolf Lake on the Ottawa River in Canada. The photograph was taken sometime in the 1890s when she was visited by her three sisters. The sisters are standing at the left of the back row, with Ida second from left. Her class consisted of children of all ages and clearly most were quite poor as they came to school in their bare feet. Ida taught at the school until 1905 when she married my grandfather and they moved to Webwood in Ontario where they were to produce six children, John their youngest being my father.
In 1919 Ida became seriously ill with a bronchial infection, a casualty of the great influenza pandemic, and she died en route to hospital. After the funeral the six children were taken to an orphanage until their eldest sister was old enough to take charge of the family home and to care for her brothers and sisters.
Sadly, Ida had died long before I was born and I was never to meet my grandfather.